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Hungary: Arrogance and ignorance by Karl Pfeifer

A few words by way of introduction. Karl Pfeifer is an Austrian journalist (born in Baden bei Wien) with Hungarian roots. After the Anschluss his family moved to Hungary where he spent the next five years until 1943. He speaks Hungarian and is the correspondent for the weekly Hetek, the publication of the Hít Gyülekezete (Faith Church). I might add that Karl is a regular reader of Hungarian Spectrum.

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It was Timothy Kirkhope, Conservative member of the British Parliament for Yorkshire and the Humber, who invited his compatriot, the actor Hugh Grant, to publicly state his case on press freedom on June 27th in the European Parliament. Grant, after painful experiences with phone hacking by the now defunct News of the World, did so as the spokesman of the “Hacked Off” Campaign that tries to find a proper balance between restraining tabloid journalism and maintaining the freedom of the press. Grant stated that the new media laws in Hungary were a particularly bad example of the infringement of media freedom in Europe in recent years. The press should control the government – and not the other way round.

The newly appointed Hungarian assistant undersecretary Ferenc Kumin responsible for international communication decided to send the British actor a packet of “reliable information” to prove that there is absolutely nothing wrong with the state of the Hungarian media. He made a big show about the difficulty of finding Hugh Grant’s postal address. The star has of course an office which deals with fan mail, but Kumin seemed to be intent on not being mistaken for an admirer.

István Pálffy, a former journalist and now a member of the Christian Democratic People’s Party (the junior coalition partner of the ruling Fidesz) who is also deputy chairman of the parliamentary committee for culture and the press, remarked that Hugh Grant “seems stuck in his role in the film ‘Love Actually’ (2003) and thinks he is prime minister of Great Britain.”

The movie star could counter with an observation by the American educator Amos Bronson Alcott (1799-1888), which Grant, of all people, could deliver superbly: “To be ignorant of one’s ignorance is the malady of the ignorant.”

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And finally a few footnotes to the above. First about Ferenc Kumin. I “met” him first as an “independent commentator” on ATV, a liberal television station. He did try to be neutral but after a few of his performances I wasn’t at all surprised that he was chosen in 2005 by László Sólyom, the newly elected president, as his most important adviser. I thought that it would be a good fit. And indeed he fiercely defended all, even questionable, decisions of the president.

After five years Sólyom was dropped by Fidesz and Kumin lost his job. However, he safely landed in Századvég, a Fidesz think tank, as a political analyst. After Zoltán Kovács, undersecretary for communications attached to the Ministry of Administration and Justice, turned out to be a liability rather than an asset, the prime minister’s office took over all aspects of communication by appointing first András Giró-Szász, also from Századvég, to head communications as undersecretaryand about three weeks ago Ferenc Kumin as assistant undersecretary specifically in charge of international communications.

After listening to an interview with Kumin I had hopes that perhaps Kumin understands the world outside of Hungary better than his predecessor, Zoltán Kovács. However, his mad search for Hugh Grant’s address and the very idea that the Hungarian government would respond in this way to a couple of sentences by the actor on the state of the Hungarian media dashed all hopes that the Orbán government can ever have an acceptable way of handling the country’s communication with the outside world.

And for general amusement here are two videos. One depicts the famous scene where Hugh Grants as prime minister of Great Britain dances in Love Actually.

The other when Ferenc Gyurcsány at the urging of his staff imitates Hugh Grant.

And finally, I’m happy to announce that the Hungarian Prime Minister’s Office was successful. Ferenc Kumin and his six-member team managed to find the proper postal address of Hugh Grant. The letter is on its way. Another Hungarian embarrassment.

49 comments

I lived only about four years from summer 1938 until January 1943 in Hungary. At that time people spoke about the tót, meaning in a pejorative way the Slovaks. Now the Slovaks have a higher standard of living and despite all the machinations of Fidesz, most Hungarians vote for Most-Hid a bi-national party.

The main reason for the large emigration from the Nothern, Slovak counties was the extreme poverty. For example, before the First World War 300,000 Slovak moved to Budapest. Again for economic reasons.

This part is very familiar: Although World War I and the restrictive U.S. immigration laws of the 1920s curbed immigration, Hungarians continued to arrive. The Trianon Treaty had deprived Hungary of two-thirds of its territory, leaving three and a half million Hungarians as an ethnic minority living outside the nation’s new borders. Many decided to leave, and Hungarian Americans waged a steady campaign to raise the immigration quota. Ensuing years of chaos, revolution, counter-revolution, extreme nationalism, and anti-Semitism created many political refugees.

Wondercat :
Prof Balogh, a bit deeper — what were the reasons for such disparate poverty in the Felvidek? Different administrative structures / taxation / access to education…? Thank you.

I believe it was also a combination of factors, such as mechanization of agriculture. At that time Hungary or actual the Austrian-Hungarian empire was very agricultural, and this mechanization could not be absorb by other industries.

K. Pfeifer: “I lived only about four years from summer 1938 until January 1943 in Hungary. At that time people spoke about the tót, meaning in a pejorative way the Slovaks”

Please note that the Tot, Toth was not a pejorative name in Hungary. There are many people surnamed Toth (as there are Olah, Racz, Horvath, Nemet, Orosz, Lengyel etc.) Although no Roman or Slovak.
The name Slovak was born in Cleveland in the 1880s “Rovnianek for the National Slovak Society (NSS) and Furdek for FCSU. Fr. Furdek in his writings coined the title “Slovaks” here in America, while Rovnianek was using the term “Slavonians” for the same ethnic group, later accepting Furdek’s term “Slovaks” as more accurate. Rovnianek would go on to emphasize the proper Slovak national colors of white, blue and red.”

So not only in Hungary, but anywhere else there is no history of “Slovak” prior to 1880.
A community in Southern Hungary was founded in the XVIII century and proudly named itself Totkomlos.
The claim that “tot” In Hungary is pejorative was initiated as a Slovak anti-Hungarian propaganda.

Dr Balogh: “If these figures are approximately correct then more Slovaks and other ethnic groups came from Hungary than Magyars. The large Slovak emigration is especially striking if we consider that in Greater Hungary (minus Croatia-Slavonia) in 1900 there were 8.5 million Hungarians and only 2 million Slovaks.”
Maybe two popularizing websites are not the best place for getting data (Hmm I learned this from You! :-)) First of all, prior to the 1910 US census, the nationality (e.i Mother tounge) of the immigrants were not recorded. Thus any claims prior to that data are subject to national propagnda on either side.
I recommed to you Table 4 and Table 6 of “http://www.census.gov/population/www/documentation/twps0029/twps0029.html”. The mother tounge can be extrapolated somwhat to the past also.

However, I can not make sense out of your math either, you are adding up different numbers and the Slovak number you cite has to be incorrect based on the US Census bureu data.

Prof Balogh, a bit deeper — what were the reasons for such disparate poverty in the Felvidek? Different administrative structures / taxation / access to education…? Thank you.

At that time Hungary was overwhelmingly an agricultural country. Even after 1945 still 56% of the population lived off the land. The “Upperlands” were mountainous and most of the land was not the best quality. The Slovak peasants grew mostly potato.

Thank you. The parallel with the “Highlands”, the Scots regions where men were hard put to live by crofting, thus goes beyond the names. The best product of both regions — their peoples — were forced to emigrate to survive, it seems.

<pThe name Slovak was born in Cleveland in the 1880s “Rovnianek for the National Slovak Society (NSS) and Furdek for FCSU. Fr. Furdek in his writings coined the title “Slovaks” here in America, while Rovnianek was using the term “Slavonians” for the same ethnic group, later accepting Furdek’s term “Slovaks” as more accurate. Rovnianek would go on to emphasize the proper Slovak national colors of white, blue and red.”

So not only in Hungary, but anywhere else there is no history of “Slovak” prior to 1880.

Louis Kovach is a fountain of knowledge. He knows that there was no such a word in English or even in Hungarian as Slovak ~ Szlovák before 1880. I have news for him. The word existed both in Hungarian and in English from 1828 on. I do hope that you are not going to question the Oxford, Webster and the Hungarian etymological dictionaries.

Dr Balogh: “Louis Kovach is a fountain of knowledge. He knows that there was no such a word in English or even in Hungarian as Slovak ~ Szlovák before 1880. I have news for him. The word existed both in Hungarian and in English from 1828 on. I do hope that you are not going to question the Oxford, Webster and the Hungarian etymological dictionaries.”

Well the word started to be used probably even before the 1828, except not exactly in the context of a specific slav nation in N Hungary.Dr Balogh, there is an important item in historiography and that is “context”!
It is still obvious that in the 1880s in Cleveland the good folks still were not sure what their name is. But even if I would agree with your date difference of 60 years, it would not change the recent use of Slovak compared to tot in Central Europe. Whether it was 1000 or 960 years (historically speaking) does not make any difference.
I am glad that you commented on my comment to K. Pfeifer.

I am still waiting for the correction of immigration into the US data you presented.
PS my unabridged Oxford Dictionary does not give a date for Slovak and Merriam Webster gave: “No results found in the 1913 edition. Please modify your search and try again.
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No results found in the 1828 edition. Please modify your search and try again.”

Kovach, Do you have some memory imbalance? We are still waiting for about a dozen of subjects that we discredited you with FACTS with. You became silent. I tried to protect you before from others calling you names then you started calling me names. You are a hypocrite and areal ass. I wish you would get lost because you do not add to any subjects, you are simply trolling each conversation and dragging out with questionable theories with a clear bias towards the extreme right.
I can only hope that Eva will stop replying to you.

PS my unabridged Oxford Dictionary does not give a date for Slovak and Merriam Webster gave: “No results found in the 1913 edition. Please modify your search and try again.
——————————————————————————–
No results found in the 1828 edition. Please modify your search and try again.”

I don’t have to check my sources. I happen to have the two-volume compact edition of the OED. This is the complete text of the twelve-volume original plus the supplement. Oxford University Press supplied even a magnifying glass to aid the reader because the text had to be reduced greatly. In the second volume on page 2872 there are the details. Used first in 1829 in Ecycl. Metrop.

In Webster’s Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary, in my edition on p. 1110, the claim is that first appearance of the word “Slovak” in English occurred in 1828. It doesn’t give more details as Webster’s doesn’t in general.

As far as the Hungarian use of the word is concerned, I used A magyar nyelv történeti-etimológiai szótára. In the third volume one can read this: szlovák 1828 and gives where it can be found and in what context. To quote: “A’ Vendek … megértik a’ Slowák beszédjét is.” In English: “The Slovenes can understand the speech of the Slovak.”

As for “no results found in the 1828 edition” I can’t even comprehend what you have in mind. If you think that the date behind a word in dictionaries means that that particular word can be found in that particular edition of the dictionary you are wrong. For example the word “ignoramus’ first appeared in the English language in 1615. Naturally not in a dictionary but it was the title of a play by a certain George Ruggle.

as for the origin of word Slovak here is a nice summary http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slovaks
with regards to Slovak immigration to the United States aswell forced magyarization policies and repression of Slovak culture by Hungarian government played important role.The comparison to Scotland is quite good. The main diffrence is Scots decided to stay within Uk and Slovaks used first opportunity (famous Trianon)to escape.

Louis Kovach :
Some1: I am not aware of a single refute on my past comments.

Read Eva’s above post and many others. Read back on other replies by many others. Are you seriously having problems of remembering every time when your comments (speculations, sentences made based on questionable resources, blurs that were dismissed with factual data) were absolutely written off?
Maybe you should pull your head off from your own behind and read what others write to you. I know it is hard to do with your narcissistic disposition, as we see the same traits in Orban, but try.

Dr Balogh: Slovak was used as a generic term also for “Slav”. I have cited that in Cleveland the good folks (Furdek & Co) were still arguing in the 1880s what to call themselves. Your dictionary citations have not changed anything in that regard,
Regarding your dictionaries, I have both of them Oxford and Webster and can read them without magnifying glasses. I went back to the earlier editions to see when it actually showed up in the unabridged Webster. As you can also try it, the word was not there.
Even the Kuner cited Wikipedia article shows that the name use is murky in the past.
Additionally you were wrong in your numbers for Slovak immigration into the US based on the US Census records. Taking random numbers from various nationalistic sites is not professional.

Louis K. is the sharp edge of Hungarian mediocrity as represented in the devious fifth columnists of Hungaricum presently located in the US and wishing they were back home to cheer on the leading lights of Hungarian political genius–kover, matolcsy, and the
Felcsutian himself, Herr Kaiser Orban!